[WEB4LIB] Thin clients anyone ?

[Dennis Brantley]

Hanan Cohen wrote:
> 
> Definition (from www.whatis.com)
> Thin clients are PC's designed to be centrally-managed, configured with
> only essential equipment, and devoid of CD-ROM players, diskette drives,
> and expansion slots (and therefore lower in cost).
> 
> The pendulum has reached it's peak and now going back to (smart)
> terminals, which is actually what we want our readers to use : low
> maintenance, no installing and very secure.
> 
> Has anyone thought about implementing thin clients technology in their
> library ?

Some good comments on this thread, so here's my $.02.

Yes, the pendulum is swinging the other way, but not for everyone.  The
thin-client market has two distinct themes.  One is the
cost-of-ownership thing, the other is how-do-I-give-it-to-everybody. 
Cost of ownership is a big deal in the corporate world where entire
organizations live and die with their ability to compute.  Everything is
expensive...down time is expensive, taking two weeks to deploy a new
application is expensive, not being able to get to something from
different locations is expensive, re-deploying new systems with Pentium
VII technology is expensive.  And at that, it's cheaper to buy and
support a new system for everybody than to upgrade and support only the
1/3 of the population that might really need it.

And you're right, if you pencil it out, many times the purchase price of
a thin client implementation is not gonna save any money.  It may even
cost more.  But it's the back end where corporate users expect to save
money.  One corporate thin-client implementation for 900 users showed
trips to the desktop reduced by 80%, and first call resolution climbed
to 90%.  In a library, this may not mean much, but in corporate America,
this is a big deal, and a big part of the success of thin clients.  

But as many libraries have found out, some aspects of thin computing are
useful.  For example, the ability to provide public access to all
library resources, DOS and Windows apps included, over the Internet. 
The ability to add a new application in a few minutes.  The ability to
'recycle' older PCs to do everything the newest ones can do.  Giving the
students on that remote campus access to the library's LAN-based
resources.  From a technology point of view, thin clients should be the
cat's meow for libraries...less maintenance, more secure, easier to
access, easier to re-configure, easier to upgrade.  Like when you had a
VAX and VTs, except it's all based on PC technology.

Experience has shown that not all of these are important to libraries. 
And the cost of entry for thin computing doesn't help.  It is difficult
to quantify tomorrow's potential cost savings in terms of today's
purchase price, particularly when the savings may be largely a 'hassle
factor' that is only meaningful to those delegated with the task of
making sure everything works.

--
Dennis Brantley - mailto:dennis at dati.com
Data Access Technologies, Inc.  http://www.dati.com
Library Information Access Technology
Internet/Remote Access - Thin Client Computing - CD Networking
Voice (770) 339-6554  FAX (770) 682-0629